


Mimesis

by exchequered (kesterstjohn)



Category: The Borgias (Showtime TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 11:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16387043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kesterstjohn/pseuds/exchequered
Summary: “You touch me,” Pascal whispers, moving closer into the caress, “like an artist.”





	Mimesis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arithanas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arithanas/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, Arithanas!

Conversation is a thing new to him, and strange.

Micheletto has never before involved himself with a man who likes to talk. His master Cesare Borgia talks to him, of course, but in an oblique manner. Their conversations are a conduit, a way for Cesare to think out loud; they are like a confessional, for though Micheletto can give no absolution, he speaks in absolutes, and afterwards he keeps it secret. Their dialogues are brief by necessity, and much is left unsaid. Micheletto likes that type of conversation, for he can make much of the silence.

Pascal talks. He enjoys words, both written and spoken aloud. Perhaps because he resides in the solitude imposed upon him by Micheletto, whenever they see one another, words overflow Pascal’s lips like wine. Not the rough wine of the taverns, either, but a fine vintage fit to grace a cardinal’s table.

Pascal talks, and Micheletto likes to listen. It is fascinating, to hear him read aloud the poems he favours, to see the emotions flash across his expressive face. Micheletto lies on the floor, the solidity of warm, aged oak beneath him, the smell of dust and musk in his nostrils, and he listens to Pascal recite Catullus.

He focuses on the shape of the Latin until it becomes as familiar as the words of the Mass. At length, desire wakens and they indulge in a form of communion: Micheletto takes the body but not the blood—no, for he takes some other fluid instead, just as sacred—and if it profanes the Holy Church, so much the better, for the Church considers him— _them_ —sinful.

They make their own form of worship in the attic, and in the aftermath, Pascal talks some more. Different words, softer words. Phrases that invite affection and assure Micheletto of his power.

The afternoon light shines golden, dousing Pascal’s flesh. It illuminates wondrous detail, the texture of skin, the line of bones, the tracery of veins. Micheletto throws back the blankets and explores with a lazy hand, registering Pascal’s responses both voluntary and involuntary.

“You touch me as if committing me to memory,” Pascal says, a trace of wonder in his tone, in his expression.

“I am.”

Pansy-dark eyes widen, and happiness blossoms on Pascal’s open face. Micheletto feels something that hurts like an old wound.

“You touch me,” Pascal whispers, moving closer into the caress, “like an artist.”

_Like an assassin_ , Micheletto thinks. Aloud, he says, “I studied medicine, once. I thought to make it a career. But I cannot read, and so ended that hope.”

Pascal reaches for him, smiling. “Letters may defeat you, but you read bodies well enough.”

*

Long afternoons stretch into evenings, rose-tinted as the sun sets.

“Do you miss Milan?” Micheletto asks, leaving the warm nest of their bed to fetch a flagon of wine, a gift from his master.

“No,” Pascal’s expression is full of light and humour, “for I am with you.”

Micheletto grunts. “You cannot charm me, boy.”

“Can I not?” Laughter rings out. Sated, Pascal is ever playful. “I must try harder, then.”

“Do not. I care nothing for charm. It is an illusion.”

“You prefer truth, even if it causes pain?” Pascal sits up, wraps his arms around his raised knees.

“Pain is truth.”

A look of delight transfigures the boy’s face. He claps his hands. “You see? I knew you were a philosopher!”

A reluctant smile shapes Micheletto’s lips. He hides it, takes refuge in the wine, swallowing long gulps in defiance of the vintage, then seats himself once more on the makeshift mattress.

“I do miss Milan, sometimes.” Pascal drinks the wine with grace, like a gentleman, even though he sups it from the flagon. The beverage loosens his tongue, and he talks of the art he misses, rather than the city. He speaks with warmth and admiration of the paintings, the sculpture, the discipline of Bramante, the genius of Leonardo.

Micheletto listens, and from his boy he learns a new term, _mimesis_. Art is a representation of reality, according to the Greek sages; art is one step, two steps removed from the truth; a mirror of actuality.

Micheletto is not a philosopher, but he knows this is true. For Pascal is himself a _mimesis_ : he is beautiful and learned, and though his eyes are not as fierce and his hair not as dark and his temper more serene than the quicksilver that flows through Cesare Borgia’s veins, he is simulacrum enough to have stirred Micheletto’s desire when first they met.

It was not intentional. Micheletto loves his master, cleaves to him with the faithfulness of a religious. Not one of the religious inhabiting the Roman Church; he has seen enough hypocrisy there—but one of the desert monastics in antique times: If Cesare asked him to stand atop a column for the rest of his life, Micheletto would do it; such is his belief in the man. That is love, a pure, ascetic love.

He is not an ascetic with Pascal. 

Micheletto tests his feelings. When he lies with Pascal, he doesn’t think of Cesare. He thinks only of oblivion, and of the willing body beneath and around him. Uncoupled, he feels affection, warmth, a tenderness that lodges in his heart. Nothing like the ferocity of his feelings towards his master. The two cannot be compared.

A philosopher would debate this further, but Micheletto cares not. The two states simply _are_ , and with that he is content.

Pascal has fallen silent, creeping back beneath the blankets as the sun fades and a chill curls around the attic.

Micheletto registers the change in temperature, but does not feel it. He draws the blankets higher around Pascal to keep him warm. “You misunderstood me, I think, when we first met. When you offered to show me the workshop of Leonardo.”

“I did not,” Pascal says, a smile lighting his eyes. “I understood you perfectly.”

Micheletto wonders, but presses on regardless: “It was not his art that interested me. The clay model of his boy was too blatant.”

Now Pascal laughs. The sound fills the room. “I thought it was I who was blatant, cupping the model’s arse as I did!”

A smile creeps over Micheletto’s lips. “Aye, you were blatant indeed. From the very first, when you stood atop the plinth with the broken horse and called to my master, I knew you.”

“But you resisted me.” The boy is sure of himself, basking in the happiness of certainty. He tosses his head like a coquette, rich dark curls dancing over bare shoulders. “You were a challenge. A puzzle.”

“You like puzzles.”

“Perhaps I learned something from the boy who knew the boy who modelled for Leonardo.”

“Is that _mimesis_?” Micheletto’s interest is piqued. “Acquiring knowledge at a remove. Learning Leonardo’s wisdom from a boy who knew a boy.”

Pascal’s brow furrows as he ponders the question, then he laughs again. “I confess I do not know. But if knowledge is an art, then yes, I suppose it is _mimesis_.”

“If knowledge is an art,” Micheletto muses, thinking of the lengths to which Cesare will go to ensure the flow of information from the Italian states, from Naples and Sicily and France and even further afield. “I think it must be.”

“Yes,” Pascal says, and there seems to be sadness in his eyes, just briefly.

*

Micheletto knows little of art, but he knows much of the art kept by the cardinals in their palaces. To please Pascal, he finds a way for them into various residences, showing his boy the treasures hidden from sight of the common people.

In the Palazzo Colonna, they view a massive marble torso, perhaps twice the size of life. It shows a male figure, heavily muscled, seated upon an animal skin. Of arms and head nothing remains; both legs are cut off at the knees.

The torso twists to the side. Perhaps originally it was in an attitude of thought—some god or hero pondering on matters of importance—but now there seems to be something of the labourer about it. The muscles strapped across the ribs, the bulging thighs splayed open, the genitals—the cock has gone, of course, but the balls are full and ripe—hang beneath crisp curls of pubic hair. It is mighty, and vulnerable, and it strikes a chord deep in Micheletto.

Upon the base is an inscription. Pascal recognises it as Greek, and in the evening light he tries to read the names. “Apollonios made it,” he says at last.

“Who is it?”

Pascal shrugs lightly as he straightens and makes a slow circle about the sculpture. “It doesn’t say. The physique suggests a hero. Perhaps Hercules. Or, see, the animal skin he sits upon—Dionysus, or perhaps Apollo?”

“Not Apollo,” Micheletto says. “You have the form of Apollo. This does not.”

It is a clumsy compliment, but worth it to see Pascal’s delight.

“It is astonishing,” Pascal smiles at him around the twisted torso, trailing a hand over the thigh, up over the flat stomach to the waist, “over a thousand years have passed, and yet the ancients knew more of representing the perfections and imperfections of anatomy than many artists living today.”

“Save Leonardo,” Micheletto says, following but not mimicking. He does not like touching marble skin.

Pascal gives him a private smile, still stroking the torso. “Michelangelo, too. His work is much influenced by the forms set down by the ancients.”

Micheletto rounds the torso, observing dispassionately that the back is not without flaw. His own back is marked by the lash; weals of devotion to his master. He looks upon the torso and sees himself: Strong, solid, a working man. A man accustomed to labour and toil, a man with the scars of history upon him.

“This,” he says, choosing his words with care, “this is what I like.” _This is what I am like_.

“I see,” Pascal says, his tone playful. “You prefer a more muscular man. I am cut to the quick.”

“Not true,” Micheletto says, though it is—before Pascal, his pleasure had come from wrestling his lovers, from the slam of forceful hard flesh and the solidity of weight brought to bear against him. It was why he’d loved Augustino, whose brawn made up for any other lack.

“Why, then, do you like it?” Pascal waits for an answer, curious.

Micheletto steps back from the torso, surveys it in its entirety. “I like it because it has no head. It cannot bear witness. It can make no judgement. It simply is. And that is what makes it beautiful to me.”

He thinks he’s gone too far, said too much, but then Pascal smiles, comes to him and clasps his hand, brings it to his lips and presses a kiss to the warm flesh.

“I understand,” Pascal says. “I understand you perfectly.”


End file.
